View full sizeErik Simkins/Samuel Goldwyn FilmsCedric the Entertainer as Richard McIver in 'Grassroots'.

Perhaps the most curious omission from the movie "Grassroots" is that there's no mention at all of the classic "Simpsons" episode "Marge vs. the Monorail." Then again, maybe director Stephen Gyllenhaal didn't want to draw too many parallels between his idealistic protagonist, erstwhile Seattle City Council candidate Grant Cogswell, and the elevated-train-promoting huckster who nearly ruined Springfield.

"Grassroots" chronicles, in what it admits is a "mostly true" fashion, the quixotic 2001 campaign by Cogswell (Joel David Moore) to unseat Councilman Richard McIver (Cedric the Entertainer). With the help of Phil Campbell (Jason Biggs), a fired journalist who reluctantly becomes his campaign manager, Cogswell's fringe, single-issue candidacy finds an unexpected groundswell of support and he becomes a more serious challenge to McIver than anyone imagined.

The cast also includes Lauren Ambrose as Phil's girlfriend, who's initially only tolerant of their home's transformation into a campaign crash pad, and, for some reason, Tom Arnold as a supportive bar owner. Campbell, who wrote the book on which the film was based, wrote for The Stranger, and we'll leave it to the Seattle alternative press community to nitpick the accuracy of the filmed-in-Seattle project.

Gyllenhaal (yes, Maggie and Jake's father, whose career highlight remains the 1991 HBO film "Paris Trout") clearly aims for a quirky underdog appeal, and Moore brings a gawky charm, but if the real Cogswell was this mercurial and monomaniacal then its both surprising and troubling that he came so close to acquiring real political power.